This dramatic turnaround–Apple moving to a device leadership position and IBM moving to a service leadership position–created the conditions for today’s announcement of a strategic partnership–an event which is astounding to those who witnessed the 1980s and 1990s. Were it not for the tenacious independence of Apple and the business model agility of IBM, neither company would be around today to leverage one another.

He believes that SAP and Salesforce would prefer not to get involved with such an alliance, and that Oracle, who believe that Android ripped over Java in building their platform, would hope that Android fails in the enterprise.

In light of the announcement, BlackBerry shares fell by more than 10%. In its defense, Blackberry released an email statement saying that Apple and IBM’s partnership “only underscores the ongoing need for secure end-to-end enterprise mobility solutions like those BlackBerry has delivered for years,” and as the “clear leader” in the market, “enterprises should think twice about relying on any solution built on the foundation of a consumer technology that lacks the proven security benefits that BlackBerry has always delivered.”